good evening from washington, d.c. there is breaking election news out of florida. hand recount being ordered in the undecided senate contest there. and it turns out that this happened without more than 700,000 ballots from florida's second biggest county. the reason for that, a deadline missed by just a few minutes. no recount in the governor's race, which appears all but over. we'll bring you that shortly. we begin though, tonight keeping them honest with an eruption of presidential anger at the russian investigation. however yo see it, it's clear that robert mueller is very much on the president's mind.

he's been meeting with lawyers, going over written answers to questions that one of his attorneys told "the washington post," and i'm quoting here, included possible traps. and with the special counsel's next legal move expected shortly, the president woke up this morning and began tweeting. "the inner workings of the mueller investigation are a total mess. they have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. they are screaming and shouting at people, threatening them to come up with the answers they want. they are a disgrace to our nation and don't care how many lives they ruin. these are angry people, including the highly conflicted bob mueller who worked for obama for eight years. they won't look at all the bad acts and crimes on the other side." and then "a total witch hunt like no other in american history." now, in a subsequent tweet, the president says "universities will some day study what highly conflicted and not senate approved bob mueller and his gang of democrat thugs have done to destroy people. clearly, he's not a fan, but keeping them honest, you can take a dim view of the investigation on any number of

grounds without uttering a single falsehood, which is not what the president does. for starters, if robert mueller is a thug, he's a registered republican one. as for the president's claim he worked eight years for president obama, he was not. he was the country's fbi director. >> thank you all for coming, general, thank you for being here. it is my honor to nominate robert s. mueller of california to become the director of the federal bureau of investigation. >> robert mueller was confirmed 98-0 in 2001, 100-0 when president obama renominated him. but as special counsel, he was not senate confirmed. that's because special counsels don't receive senate confirmation. as for the president's claim that the mueller investigation has found no collusion with russia and subsequently, that's

not a factual statement. the special counsel said nothing one way or the other. we have no idea what, if anything, mueller has found regarding allegations of collusion. we do know he's indicted russians for alleged collaborating with americans, and indicted one of the participants of the trump tower meeting during the campaign and focusing on others, and now could be on the verge of indicting one or more trump associates with ties to wikileaks. now, of course, it's possible the president's rage stems from being falsely accused. but robert mueller has yet to accuse him of anything. it's also possible the president sees the walls closing in and is lashing out. whatever the case, he seems to be saying things that increase, not diminish, the scrutiny on him. new reporting as well in "the washington post," we touched on it briefly at the top, josh dossy, has additional words on the questions which the president will answer. which questions are the president's lawyers planning on answering and which ones aren't

they planning to answer, do you know? >> that's a good question, anderson. i talked to rudy giuliani, the president's main lawyer today, obviously the former mayor of fork, who said they received the written questions, and they have not decided if they were going to answer some because they thought they could be trapped and problematic. i questioned him on those words and he would not say. we know there are at least two dozen questions or so that focus on pre-2016 election day. and we know up to november 2016 the president's lawyers have met with him for maybe 10 or 15 hours and they're still wrangling how many of them they want to answer and how many they don't. >> so are the questions focused on before the president became the president when he was president-elect where and during the campaign? >> right. >> because that's all mueller was interested or or because that's all the president's team were willing to answer in.

>> well, that's all they've agreed to answer, anderson. they've not agreed to answer anything about obstruction or anything post-election day. the president's team has been very reticent to agree to any sort of questions since after he became president citing privilege and saying that should not be part of the investigation. and there's a lot of internal discussions going on whether they should answer any in the future. as we reported this afternoon it's unclear whether they're even going to answer all of those or not. >> and giuliani wouldn't specify which questions. i know there are questions between lindsey graham and acting attorney general matt whitaker. >> he said that the acting attorney general would not recuse himself from the probe as many democrats including senator

mark warner want him to do, he said he did not need to recuse himself but he also had not spoken to special counsel mueller about the investigation yet. senator graham said he also committed to not shutting down this investigation in the meeting and said whatever opinions he had in the private sector before coming in obviously matt whitaker was very critical of the investigation, would not be part of his thinking now. so we shall see. >> all right, jeff dossy, appreciate the reporting. thank you. >> thank you. >> i want to get more perspective now from one lawmaker. eric swalwell, i spoke to him just before air. this notion that the president and his team are not answering any questions about possible obstruction of justice or anything about his time as president, does that surprise you that mueller went along with that? >> well, i think mueller wants to give him every opportunity to

give his version of events so that knowing the way the president conducts himself and that he undermines and attacks an investigation, when a report comes out i don't think mueller wants him to say i didn't have my chance to tell my side of the story. i think it's amazing the way mueller is doing it, the patience he's showing. and i think he's giving the president more and more rope to hang himself with. >> giuliani was saying to "the washington post" that there's some issues legally for them. some of the questions create more questions legally for them than others. >> that's what someone who would have a lot of exposure would probably say. again, if you didn't do anything wrong, you typically don't have anything to worry about. you would just answer the questions and come clean. >> so the question of a perjury trap you don't buy. >> i don't buy that if the president didn't do anything

wrong. >> as far as the presidentassur won't shutdown the mueller investigation, do you put much faith in that? all we know is what he said prior to him assuming power. >> we know he's prejudged the mueller investigation. we know he's plotted with president trump according to fox reporting to put himself into this investigation and wind it down. so i don't really trust lindsey graham's opinion. i'd rather see him ask the office of ethics to recuse himself. >> you think he should recuse himself? >> well, yes, i think he should ask, but i don't know see how there's not the perception of a conflict. for two reasons. his prejudging and also the relationship he has with sam clovis. he was a key witness in the george papadopoulos part of the investigation. >> and papadopoulos pled guilty. i know you said you want

congress to pass a bill to protect mueller. the republicans showed no sign of having any interest in that even after the democrats assumed power in the house, they're still going to control the senate. >> mitch mcconnell has shown no sign of having interest, but bipartisan republicans like chuck grassly and others in the senate passed legislation to protect mueller. mcconnell is subverting the will of the majority. democrats are telling republicans in the house if you want us to give you votes because you've never been able to get the votes on your own, you're going to need to put protect mueller language in that. they've not been able to pass a budget without democratic votes, and this time we're going to say the cost of that is going to be to protect the rule of law and protect mueller. >> a lot to talk about, a lot of people with views on it. it almost feels like election

night. author of the last palace. and also david chalian. senator santorum, you're watching congressman swalwell there. with he says whitaker is compromised because he was the treasure for campaign chair clovis, that's just absurd. >> even the assertion that he's prejudged the case, the reality is he was a pundit on this network and he made comments that, you know, he did as a private citizen making punditry comments. >> before he'd actually seen document asian. >> is punditry a word? >> it is. we break ground here on anderson cooper. that's it, i'm done. no, he's now in a role where he has a responsibility, if you look at the way he behaved in

the attorney general's office, he's going to do what the president, you know, says with respect to being attorney general except as you heard from lindsey graham with respect to the mueller investigation. i think lindsey's going to be the chairman of the judiciary committee, he's sat down and talked with him. i know matt whitaker, and he's going to do the job. he's not going to inject himself into the middle of the mueller probe. >> the job is to stop the mueller probe. he's so transparent. he lies about his own thoughts and feelings, i really admire how he's so wide open. they asked him about maybe chris christie permanently replacing whitaker. what did trump say? he started talking about mueller. i will read it to you. he talked about the legal opinion that said he could appoint whitaker and then he said as you know i'm concerned this investigation should never have been brought, never have

been had, it's something that should never have been had, it's an illegal investigation. you ask him about mat whitaker and he says it's an illegal investigation. >> nonstop matt whitaker, mueller. that's what he's talking about. >> it's like going to your neighbor's house, hi, bob, how are you, i don't have your dog chained up in the basement. >> i don't know understand why what matt whitaker says as a pundit isn't relevant. you're acting as if there's some magic wall -- but your opinions expressed here don't just disappear because you took an oath. he expressed some pretty severe opinions i would say in talking about -- >> do you believe that's why he got the job? >> yes, absolutely. there's no question the president wants somebody who's going to do his bidding on this?

i don't know how you can be so dismissive with the things he said. >> i do think there'd be an outcry, and i do think rod rosenstein is still involved. whitaker is his boss but rosenstein is still involved. i think where whitaker becomes hugely important is when mueller issues his report, does he redact it, does he say this is not for the american public to view, this needs to remain private? and then you end up with a huge constitutional fight here on your hand, and i think the president would like it to be deep sixed and maybe whitaker would agree with him on that and that's a problem. >> david, just moving onto the president's tweets, why do you think he is so worked up -- agitated, worked up, however you want to describe it. clearly it's in his mind and he's been going over it with his lawyers about it. >> we now know in reporting he spent the last three days with his lawyers. look at donald trump how he's

behaved as both a private citizen when it comes to legal matters and as a president when it comes to this probe. we know how much the probe is under his skin. so sitting in a room with his lawyers being forced to confront the reality of this probe and not just the created reality is a whole different universe. so he clearly is frustrated. but b, trying to set a predicate for this report for whenever it comes out for how it's going to be received by the public. the only thing, guys, i would say to you is we know from donald trump that there's one reason jeff sessions was fired. one reason. because he recused himself from the probe. >> correct. >> so the whitaker replacement was to get someone who did not recuse themselves from the probe. that's the entire reason, why the vacancy existed and why he found somebody. >> that horse is out of the barn. you can't put the mueller probe back -- you know, rewind.

it's there, it's probably close to the conclusion. they're going to be issuing a new report. >> -- is to deny reality. like to deny trump's idea of what -- i agree, kirsten is he picked whitaker because he wanted somebody who's going to be tough on the probe. but the reality is he can't be and won't be. >> it's not right. there are a thousand ways that he can choke off that whitaker can choke off this probe and he's signaled them on cnn as the president was sitting in his pajamas eating ice cream and watching television. and that is why the president picked him, and you cannot be certain of what whitaker will do. he can cut the funding, he can refuse to turn that report over. he can gut the report. there can be a court fight about executive privilege on the

report. what the president has done -- this is not just a question about his outrageous behavior towards sessions because of sessions' independence, this comes firing comey as well. the president wants a lapdog and that is contrary to what we want at the department of justice. >> let's assume the report comes out and the house is going to ask for it, this is actually a political exercise as you all well know. right, the president's not going to be indicted. this is about impeachment which is political exercise -- it'll be a battle about executive privilege, but that the end of the day this is are their high crimes and misdemeanors that the president has committed that the house will move to impeach? it's going to be over and everybody's going to move on. >> but isn't there some value in just understanding what happened, whether or not it's impeachable, whether -- >> absolutely. but i'm saying this is why is

the president tweeting, why's he doing it? this is political battle. i was there in the senate for the impeachment of bill clinton. the house wanted to impeach him. and ultimately he wasn't impeached because he was a political loser. if the house does impeach, it'll be dropped like a hot potato. so that's what's going to happen a the end of the day. >> i think the president has spent the last month before crowds that adore him and he was all excited about the election, and it didn't go that well. he comes back to the stark reality of three days with their lawyers which would drive anybody crazy, and he realizes in the answers, i mean this is an open book cake home test that the lawyers have done the work for him. and i were the other lawyers i'd

be furious that giuliani because he shouldn't be doing this. >> what? giving interviews? >> yeah, saying some of them are problematic, irrelevant, some are perjury traps. bob mueller can do whatever he wants. it's not going to help the president for giuliani to say this out loud. and they have to make sure everything is accurate. so they've written these answers. the president has to sit down with him, and he has to say, well, yes and no. it happened that way and it didn't happen that way. and he's frustrated because he doesn't like the process, and by the way there's no guarantee that he won't have to testify on obstruction. this is just part one. this is collusion. there's another -- >> obstruction will be a whole different set of constitutional -- >> that'll be privilege. but mueller has not given any promises about part two. >> bob mueller has said they will follow the doj guidelines. >> but part one is very problematic. remember giuliani says we can't

answer some of this. it's the president realizing oh, my god, before we even get to the problem of what we thought was obstruction, i've got these collusion problems. >> let's take a quick break. we're going to pick up the conversation when we come back. and also later how a florida u.s. senate recount will play out and all the uniquely florida factors that made this such a uniquely chaotic race.

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talking about the president's anger against the russian investigation and the breaking news about the questions he and his attorneys are said to be working on right now and have been for several days and what robert mueller's team might be getting ready to do, now that the midterms are behind us. it's making for plenty of suspense and tension, apparently a bit of venting by the president. back now with our team. does -- gloria, when rudy giuliani speaks like this, does he have permission from the president? is this like an organized strategy? >> uh, no. but i do think -- i think that the lawyers who are doing the

negotiating with the mueller team, and i think rudy giuliani is sort of the president's spokesman. i think the president would like to have rudy giuliani more involved. i think the other attorneys would like to have rudy giuliani less involved. and so i think it's a sort of a bit of a tug of war. the president is very close to rudy. he trusts him. he thinks rudy understands what he's thinking, and he believes giuliani has done a good job, and i think he's right about this, in discrediting mueller. >> why would mueller agree to just -- to not dealing with any questions about obstruction and not anything while the president was president? >> well, bob is a shrewd player having worked on cases with him, having been against him. i think that he has wanted to go into a delay of game. it's like a four corners offense. he's using the clock to build his cases. i mean, anderson, look, you've

got the guilty pleas, you've got over 30 people and companies indicted. he's been turning. he's got cohen in his corner now, manafort, gates. he's taken his time. trump thinks oh, great, i'm negotiating for all these months now. bob is using the time. he knows what he's doing. he's getting answers on collusion. people thought, well, maybe the president suspect exposed. now we know from rudy, there's some uncomfortable questions there. there is potential exposure for the president. >> and i don't think just because he isn't asking about obstruction now that we should assume bob mueller is never going to make a play to ask questions about obstruction. >> but we don't know a time frame -- >> i would be surprised -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> that's the question, that's how it is going to be answered. >> the president can't shut up on television or twitter.

maybe he has all the evidence he needs. i tend to agree with david, we don't know. >> paul? >> i think he wants the obstruction questions face to face, so he can look the president eye to eye and size him up. mueller has had a lifetime of sizing up defendants. >> do you not believe this is coming to an end? >> it's coming to an end, but if i were mueller, and he's way better than i am, but i wouldn't allow written questions on state of mind. that is, i don't want the president's lawyers to write up this is what i was thinking. we do have evidence already of what he was thinking. he told lester holt he fired comey "because of this russia thing." i don't know, maybe he fired him because of this russia thing, which suggests there's obstruction of justice. i would want it filmed so the american people can see it.

i want this president, under oath, asked why he took these steps to obstruct justice. i think the evidence is clear that he did, but i still think he ought to have the chance to answer those questions. >> the only reason that might not happen is i don't think either side wants a lengthy subpoena battle. >> right. >> and the president's lawyers would say you're not going to get them because of privilege issues. these are privileged conversations. if mueller disagreed, they would have to go to a subpoena fight. this is where mr. whitaker comes in. before you could get a subpoena, you would have to go to rod rosenstein, and now matt whitaker. >> that would be decided by the court. >> but you have to get permission. you have to get approval. if whitaker or rosenstein said no, they couldn't do it. >> again, we talked about it off camera, the woodward book talked about ty cobb seeing mueller and saying hey, look, i dare you, i double dog dare you, drop the

mic and walk out of the room. and we haven't seen him much since then. >> senator, do you think this is going to become -- do you think mueller will get a chance to ask face to face about obstruction? >> no. >> the only reason he's going to take the fifth is because he's guilty. >> we know why -- >> we know why he fired comey. >> if he was trying to obstruct justice, he did a horrible job. [ overlapping speakers ] the reality is, he's upset about it, he's vented about it. he said some things, but he's never done anything to obstruct this investigation? >> why did he fire comey? >> well, there's a whole lot of reasons. incompetence would probably be a good one. >> he was incompetent? >> half the democratic party wanted to fire jim comey. >> this is a guy who had a comedy of errors -- >> he said in an interview he

fired him because of the russia probe. >> trump says lots of things. you're sitting here telling me that you believe the president when he actually said this, because most of the time you tell me you think he lies all the time. >> he lies about facts, he tells the truth about himself. >> he says horrible things about women, because that's what he thinks about women. he lies about facts. >> you can't choose your lies. >> donald trump does every day. [ overlapping speakers ] >> the president says things at the heat of the moment that sometimes don't accurately reflect reality. >> you're his lawyer, you don't want him to testify. >> you would never put your client in front of him. you would fight tooth and nail. you would never say please go

ahead. >> i walked a client into bob mueller's office when he was the u.s. attorney in san francisco. i cut a deal with the office. i knew the client was telling the truth, and i had no qualms at all about putting him there. other times you don't. >> most of the time. >> we know trump is a born liar, that's why no one on this panel, his lawyers won't put him on. that's why nobody -- rick, i'm surprised at you, because it's not just talk. it's action by donald trump. it's firing comey. it's helping his son cook up that phony statement. it's his constant attacks on mueller and the rule of law. we have law in this country. it applies to all of us. >> i think attacking bob mueller is not obstruction, sorry, it's not. >> if he fired comey, he took these other actions -- >> there were lots of reasons to fire jim comey, lots. >> if he did it to interfere with this investigation, to benefit himself -- >> if. >> his friends or family members, that's obstruction of justice.

>> regardless that's an if. and paul will tell you, the clintons said lots of nasty things about ken starr, it's not obstruction. they banged on him pretty hard. >> i think the senator is right, it's not obstruction to criticize mueller, either. the president of the united states, when it was bill clinton, had no legal power to fire ken starr. he was unchecked, unbalanced. and totally independent. mr. mueller works directly for donald trump. and now the one go between is mr. whitaker, who, is i think, going to do everything he can, as he promised to starve this investigation. that's why whitaker's there. >> if you're one of president trump's attorneys i imagine one of the difficulties is you're not sure if your client is telling you the factual version -- i mean it could be his current version. >> i was just saying to gloria during the commercial, why do we believe he's being 100% factual with his attorneys? >> we know he said things to sarah sanders that turned out

not to be correct. >> exactly. even people in his confidence, in his circle, he doesn't have a track record necessarily of being 100% truthful with them. i think that's a very big question here. >> so if he's your client, do you walk him down the hall? >> trump? never. [ overlapping speakers ] >> imagine the abnormality of the situation that we're in. imagine if bill clinton had fired janet reno. he's fired the fbi director, fired his own attorney general. he's hired somebody who is a stooge for him who he knew the view. >> matt whitaker is not a stooge. you know, this is -- >> he's make his view clear he wants this guy a u.--

>> this guy was a u.s. attorney, he's a -- >> and? >> and he came on this network and said if you were going to do this, how would you do it? >> all right. i want to thank everybody. good nonelection night coverage. here we go again. the deadline has come and gone in florida. how many times have we said this over the years? with one race close enough to go to a hand count, the recount in the state's second largest county won't count because they missed the deadline by two minutes. details on that ahead. i just got my ancestrydna results: 74% italian. and i found out that i'm from the big toe of that sexy italian boot! calabria. it even shows the migration path from south italia all the way to exotico new jersey!

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it's all happening again in florida minus the hanging chads of 2000. the headline is the u.s. senate race in florida is now headed to a hand recount. it is just that close. rick scott leading bill nelson by 0.15%. the governor's race is outside the margin for a hand recount. that's where we stand after the deadline for the machine recount passed a few hours ago. but in browar county the recount didn't count because they missed the deadline by two minutes. cnn's ryan nobels.

first of all, what are you learning about the next phase of the recount? >> reporter: anderson, we have entered a period of time now where these races have really consolidated after that first automatic recount of all the machines. the machine recount. now we know that the senate race is within a quarter of a percent, which is pretty smart in the context of 8.5 million votes. what's going to happen now is all 67 county also begin a second phase of counting and manually recount all the under votes and over votes that took place across the state. this is an exhaustive process, but they have to have it done by sunday, with the goal of determining whether or not we can definitively say who won this election. i should point out, anderson, we're keeping a close eye on the governor's race, as well. that was within a half a percentage point after the count finished on saturday. that race pretty much stayed as what we expected. the numbers did not change that much at all. so the governor's race, that count is over, and we can say that ron desantis will be the next governor of florida. but it's the senate race that

hangs in the balance. the numbers have not changed all that much since the initial count. so if bill nelson has any hope of overcoming rick scott, they'll need a miracle during this hand recount. >> how is it possible that broward county missed the deadline by two minutes? >> reporter: it's really head scratching. and nobody really has a good explanation for exactly what happened. and i do think for the people of florida, this is pretty disappointing. it wasn't just broward county, it was also palm beach county that did not make the deadline in time and also hillsboro county was unable to make it through the machine recount. what this essentially means is they're going to revert back to the initial numbers from the first count that ended last sunday. so it's not as if those votes aren't going to count, they just did not get that exhaustive second run through the machines just to make sure those numbers

matched up. we know the numbers from broward county. they didn't change that much, in fact, they were better for rick scott. it's just more about the process and making sure that each one of these voters has their voice completely heard, according to the rules. and that just didn't happen in florida this time around. >> ryan nobles, appreciate it. with me now is jeffrey toobin and david boyes, who was lead counsel for al gore in 2000. david, decides maybe some unwanted flashbacks you may be going through, what goes through your mind when you look at what's happening there over the last several days? >> i think a couple of things. one thing that goes through my mind is that things have actually gotten better. we don't have hanging chads, we don't have disputes about whether something ought to be counted because it was dimpled or not dimpled or you don't have the sunlight test holding up the magnifying glass. you now have optical character recognition ballots that are something that you can look at and determine the voter intent in a manual recount.

so one thing, it's gotten better. the second thing is that this is not nearly as close as 2000. opposed to trying to make up 400, 500 votes, they're talking about making up more than 10,000 votes. and to do that, you're going to have to find something happened with those machines in terms of not counting all the votes. you'll figure that out with a manual recount. but i think the chances that this vote changes is much less than it was in 2000. >> jeff, you made that point, as well. and certainly the -- what we have seen now in the governor's race in florida backs up what david is saying. it was a minuscule -- i think it was just a handful of votes difference. what do you make, though, jeff, of the fact that broward county and others missed the deadline by two minutes? >> two things.

one is the florida electteral system is just aul, and run by incompetent people with inferior machines. it also has laws that are way too strict. i mean, there is absolutely no reason why two minutes should make a difference in whether a more accurate count is reported. so there remain problems in the florida electoral system. but as david said, the system is better than it was 18 years ago. i mean, the punch card system is far worse than the optical scan system in place now, but it's still no bargain with what they have. >> david, do you have recommendations for changes that could be made to make it even better? >> well, for one thing, i think jeffrey is entirely right. the deadlines are too strict. some of these counts just can't get done in that time available. i think a second thing is they've got to have working machines. palm beach county doesn't have

working machines. i actually think that if you take the supreme court decision of bush v. gore seriously, that presents an equal protection argument. because one of the things the court said is that you can't have people in one county not having as good a chance as having their votes counted as people in other counties and that's exactly what happens when you have defective machine like you do in palm beach. so two things. one is give them a realistic amount of time. and second, make sure the machines are working. the optical scanning ballot system is a good ballot system, but the machines have got to work. i think that's easily correctible with a trivial amount of money. >> if i could just reiterate a point david made earlier. i mean, the bush/gore recount in florida was a matter of ultimately a little more than 500 votes. the margin going into the manual recount is more than 12,000

votes. that's a close election from a political perspective, but it is not a close election as recounts go. the odds that nelson can make up this in a manual recount strike me as close to zero. i mean, that is a lot of votes for a recount. and i don't think anyone should be under the impression that this election is on the verge of being overturned. >> that's an important point, david. you said unless there's a massive problem with the machines, that making up this kind of a deficit is nearly impossible. >> that's right. but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, though. everybody who is ahead always tries to end the game. people who are ahead at the end in the 8th inning of a baseball game try to make it an eight-inning baseball game. this is a situation in which the florida law is absolutely clear. you've got a manual recount. if you're within a certain

margin, clearly we're within that margin. nobody disputes that. and people ought to let the process work out. not try to change the rules in the middle of the game. i think the chances that it's going to change are very, very small. i think jeffrey is 100% right about that. the people ought to let the process play out and not try to truncate it. >> david, jeff, thank you very much. appreciate it. one more piece of election news to bring you. a call-in, maine's second congressional district democratic challenger jared golden defeating the republican incumbent. with that, that brings the number of democrat pickups to 33 seats. seven races, all of them close, stay tuned. up next, president trump facing heat for skipping one veterans day event overseas. he visits u.s. marines today. i'll talk it over with senator tammy duckworth, an iraq war vet.

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the president has been facing criticism for not holding a veteran's day ceremony over the weekend. to commemorate the ends of world war i. today with that as a back drop he went to a few military

events. he and the first lady visited the barracks in washington. supporting security missions in the nations capitol. earlier i spoke about this, more with tammy duckworth and army national guard veteran who lost both her legs when her helicopter was shot down in the iraq war. i'm wondering what you make of the president's visit to the marine barracks. given he had no public events on monday. do you think this was sort of in reresponsible to the criticism he received? >> i think it's 100% trying to make up for the fact that he couldn't be bothered to stand in the rain to honor our heroic dead on veteran's day, he's had a terrible week, and he's trying to take credit for things he's not done. and cover the fact that he's not had a miserable and he's not been there for veterans. >> he touts the strength of the u.s. military, his commitment to troops. does it concern you that he has yet to visit troops in any

active combat zone? is that hard to square with what he says about his support for the military? >> there's a lot that he says that doesn't square with what he says about the military. if he cared about the troops, he would go visit them in a combat zone. he would to the cemetery. raining or snowing. he certainly wouldn't send 5,000 troops to texas to defend against a caravan that is on its way to tijuana. we have 80,000 vert rans who haven't gotten payments for their payment for housing allotment. he's failed miserably, when it comes to supporting our troops and their families. >> talking about troops being sent to the border. secretary mattis said yesterday, when talking to the troops being sent to the southern border and the role they'd be playing. he said, they would be there as confidence builders. certainly the u.s. military has a lot of priorities. is confidence building one of them?

>> no, if anything. those 5,000 troops being sent to the texas border when the caravan 1,000 miles away is headed toward california, and they're being sent to the border over thanksgiving and potentially over christmas is, if anything, it's going to bring down the troops moral. it does nothing. he did this as a political statement, and it doesn't help our troops, it doesn't help readiness. if he truly wants to support our troops he should pay attention to making sure we have a strategy for north korea, that he provides the funding to support our veterans, those are going back to school in a g.i. bill. for home lets vert homeless veterans. he fills the 40,000 vacancies that exist in the va right now, in programs that have everything to do with homelessness to mental health. >> you said you were celebrating your alive day. can you explain what that is and why you call it that? >> it was the anniversary of the day i was wounded.

it can be a day of great sadness looking back at my injuries or a day of celebration and thanks. i give thanks on that day, i choose it to be my second birthday to thank the men who saved me. they are my moral compass many i live every day to make sure they're never embarrassed or ashamed for the work i'm doing right now in the senate. and to live up to the sack faces -- sacrifices they made. it's a time to think back on what are we doing here, what can we do to support our troops, to make sure our military men and women and their families are well supported. >> i appreciate your time, thank you. >> thank you. let's check in with with chris to see what he's working on for cuomo prime time. >> how are you doing down there in d.c.? >> i'm good, ready to come home, though. >> we're going to be looking at the latest in the elections and what it means, and a short focus on florida. the drama down there, two minutes late, and none of the votes will count. really? we'll take you through the implications down there, and

we're going to be looking at what took the president by such surprise today that he went nuts about the mueller probe. and what does this mean about what might come next. we'll be taking those two on in deep fashion. >> all right. a lot to look at, six minutes. coming up, the latest on the lawsuit cnn filed against the president and other white house staffers over jim acosta's press pass being revoked. ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. and a complimentary first month's payment. in them therr hills on your guarantevacation.find gold but we can guarantee

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a ruling in cnn's lawsuit against president trump has been delayed again. judge timothy kelly who is a trump appointee heard arguments yesterday. the lawsuit over the white house revoking the jim acosta press pass. the judge said he would make an initial ruling this afternoon, that's been pushed back again with the next hearing scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. there are two issues here, the judge is expected to rule on a temporary restraining order. to restore the press pass.

then there's another issue, cnn is asking for permanent relief and a declaration that revoking his press pass was unconstitutional. hearings are ahead. we'll keep you posted for the hearing. i hope you watched our show full circle today. we had a lot on the fires in california, i hope you don't miss full circle every day. it's our daily interactive show on facebook. vote on the stories we cover. a big variety. some you won't see on ac 360. details. watch it weeknights at 6:25 p.m. eastern at facebook.com/anderson cooper. the news continues. want to hand it over to chris on cuomo prime time. >> thank you very much. i'm chris cuomo, welcome to "prime time". somebody told the president something that got him really upset about the mueller probe today. what does he fear coming his way? so much that it made him go on a twitter tear? is he signaling that his new acting a.g. may just quash the

investigation all together. we'll bring cuomo's court in session for that. big election news, big win for the democrats in the house. we have the very latest in the state of play, there are seven races still not called. bad news from the democrats in florida. one county was two minutes late in reporting results, the republicans are refusing to count any of them. governor scott's main man on the recount is here to make the case. and the go fund me story that made us feel all the feels turned out to be a big fat lie. can donors get their money back. are the scammers going to go to jail? let's get after it. the mueller investigation back on the president's mind in a big way. so much so he fired off four angry tweets. fact poor, but fury rich, hinting he has knowledge of the